We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, September 8. 2013

Understandably, Bird Dog usually takes a while to get into gear the morning after a trip, so here are a few goodies to tide you over if he's a tad late.

Pic: Just back from his vacation, the big guy feels fresh and invigorated.

As I've noted in past NASA posts, I've been a huge fan of the space program from the beginning, and have watched all of the major launches over the years. When Story Musgrave and his valiant crew fixed the Hubble back in '93, I was hitting the sack at 9 in the evening and getting up at 3 to watch it live.

The problem is that they've had half a century to deal with the first problem, and that ol' 'treadmill routine' just isn't cutting it. And they're just as clueless — if not just as helpless — with the second problem.

So it's actually kind of sad to see articles like these floating around, misleading people into thinking that whole 'space exploration' business is doable at this point in time:

It was 1973 and I was working at a high-end stereo shop in Keene, NH. Owning a 12-string, I was obviously very intimate with guitar-tuning. This was the dawn of PC chips, remember, and suddenly one came out that could 'read' audio frequencies. It occurred to me that you could incorporate twelve of them to look for a specific frequency and send a plus or minus signal to a mini-servomotor attached to each tuning key, telling it to turn one direction or the other. You'd strum the guitar once and they'd all kick into gear.

Alas.

And we have a fun new twist on the global warming front. You've been told that violence and terrorism and war and 98% of all species dying off and continent-destroying hurricanes and all the rest are going to be a direct result already happening now, as they attempt to scare you into believing. But this guy takes it to the next level.

Sensing such dangers, most people have an instinctively negative reaction to climate geoengineering. The reality, however, is that unless we deal seriously with the climate change problem (which we are not) the siren call of geoengineering will grow. And, when we get to the point where burgeoning concentrations of greenhouse gases are causing undeniable catastrophes -- tornados, hurricanes, droughts, coastal flooding, wild fires, mass extinctions -- on a scale orders of magnitude larger than we are experiencing today, the temptation to seriously consider a technological fix will become irresistible to many.

Since it's Sunday and we're just horsing around, I'll run through his little list, just for practice:

Tornadoes — We're currently at a 10-year low in twister activity — despite an ever-mounting rise of 'killer carbon', CO2.

Hurricanes — Also at an historic low, and some global climatologists are now starting to think that warmer waters reduce the number and strength of hurricanes.

Droughts — Our current drought is nothing compared to the barn-burner of the Dust Bowl 30's.

Coastal Flooding — Ah, you can always tell somebody who grew up in a landlocked state. It's like he's never even seen an oceanside beach. He's picturing the entire surrounding land mass as being at or near sea level, whereupon a few-feet rise in ocean level would devastate everything for miles around. Yet San Francisco, for example, surrounded on three sides by water and obviously one of the first to be washed away, is 15 feet above sea level.

Furthermore, I-

Hold on, this just in:

DATELINE 5/23/2033 (UPI): San Francisco Tourists Shocked At What They See

"I couldn't believe it," said Betina Wilkenson from Flatbush, Arkansas. "We drove all the way out here to kick back on the beach, and there's at least 10 less feet of sand than in the brochure!" Longtime resident Bud Ferris is also upset. "When we moved here back in my youth, there was at least fifty feet of sand running down the water. Now, after all this global warming, we're lucky if we've got forty feet!"

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom II vowed to take corrective measures. "We long ago outlawed gasoline-powered vehicles, so the obvious next step is to outlaw electric vehicles, since energy is energy and it's obviously all bad."

When asked about the state resolution of 2028 that converted the great agricultural valley into the clean-energy Big Valley Wind Farm, he scoffed. "That wind stuff is okay when it comes to charging up your laptop or cellphone, but a car? Forget it."

Where we we? Oh, right.

Wildfires — We have definitely seen bigger and bigger wildfires in recent times, and will continue to do so. And it has everything to do with poor brush management and the poor clearing of old timber and not maintaining a proper airborne fleet and nothing to do with the weather.

Mass Extinctions — As I point out in my own AGW treatise, the funny thing about the "species dying off" meme is that we have absolutely no friggin' idea how many species there are. So, if you don't have a starting number, how do you know when there are "less"?

But the real point is that there isn't any reason to think masses of species will die off simply because it gets a bit warmer. Colder, yeah, but warmer? And for those on the cusp who actually do die out, a lesser species will find the warmer temp a boon and flourish. Nature's real big on that 'balance' stuff.

On a personal note, however, I have to thank the AGW crowd for giving me the opportunity to write the above 6,531-word dissertation, one of my finest pieces. They also gave me the opportunity to create an entire new environmental movement. So thanks, global warming crowd.

This Mars trip seems a bit half baked. The GDP per capita sign up fee is supposed to be high enough to make people think about it. US citizens have to pay... $38!!! Even in these depressed economic times, that fee wouldn't require much though and for some, they might figure it a small price for an exciting way to end it all.

The cost for sending the first crew is $6B! I guess they're hoping that the people who are signing up are very unpopular and that a lot of people are anxious to see them go - and never come back.

The payload for each launch is 5000 lbs. That seems pretty light considering that that would have to include the means to produce their own food. They will have to be vegetarians (this is one part that actually makes sense - lefty vegans would probably have the required intelligence to sign up for this), but how much does the equipment and supplies for large scale hydroponic farming weigh? My guess is that some of that 5000 lbs is going to be water and some way to convert waste to plant food at least - but that won't last forever. How long can you reuse that?

I think I'll sit this one out. If I can't have a cheeseburger, I'm not going!

And tuning forks and Korg electronic tuners. I keep a tuning fork stuck behind the strings above the nut in case I want to tune it on the road, but otherwise use my faithful Korg.

But that's an interesting thought about the alternate pre-set tunings. One for standard tuning, another for open-string, another with the high strings tuned a few cents up to give it that sharp, edgy 'rock' feel, another with a few strings tuned a few cents down to give it that country feel? Given that we're just talking about a PC chip, it shouldn't be that difficult to implement.

When you get the capital together and are ready to fire up our new company, let me know. :)

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